Poetry: 3:02 AM

I can’t forget what you fail to remember.

~Shell Vera, 3:02 AM

I have been playing around with a new poem based upon a thought I had one day, “I can’t forget what you fail to remember.” I can go a few ways with this thought but this is what’s coming out so far.

🖊📓

I can’t forget what you fail to remember.

Walking circles trying to find the straight line that leads me to the door.

Picking up the things you’ve left behind

as you remind me how much you love me

and I struggle to believe it fully.

How long will it take to accept your love without condition,

when my shame plus my struggle equals a tornado waiting to touch down on this sandy beach?

How long will it take to believe your words,

when my shallow petition continues to override the deep desires that remain unspoken?

I long for the day my praise will come without the need for receipt,

when my thankfulness comes from being instead of doing,

when my existing and believing truly feels like enough.

All the while you wait,

intersecting my circles with parallel thoughts that bring to the corners of my mind the same memories that you long ago forgot.

🖊📓

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I’ll share the completed version of this when I’m done playing around with it. I’m trying to sit with poems longer these days and lean into the feelings more, instead of just leaving them as fleeting thoughts. It’s new to me. I’ve only edited two of my prior poems (“See Me” and “The Dance” (available in When I Stopped Remembering Tomorrow) between writing and publishing them because I dislike editing myself. I have always been someone who just loves to share something and see where it lands. But I’m finding this new process almost as healing as journaling is as I evolve the thoughts and see where they take me.

❓ Do you edit your poems or just write and then post?